


In Which Sollux is a Better Hacker than AR Had Anticipated (Heheh 2uck IIt)

by NevillesGran



Series: Project SSCAIA [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Project: SSCAIA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 02:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3102887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s late at night, somewhere around 2am—your favorite time. Everyone is asleep but you and whichever human is maintaining lockdown tonight. You’re sort of crap at illusions, but you’re good enough to hide the fact that you’re up way past lights out, typing furiously on the cheap laptop your captors have allowed you. If anyone looks in, all they’ll see is your obediently sleeping form. You’re pretty sure it’s good enough to fool the cameras, too, including the smarmy AI who lives in them, but you’re working on that problem from a different angle.</p><p>Because that’s the thing: any real escape plan has to involve disabling the so-called fucking Auto-Responder."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Sollux is a Better Hacker than AR Had Anticipated (Heheh 2uck IIt)

It’s late at night, somewhere around 2am—your favorite time. Everyone is asleep but you and whichever human is maintaining lockdown tonight. You’re sort of crap at illusions, but you’re good enough to hide the fact that you’re up way past lights out, typing furiously on the cheap laptop your captors have allowed you. If anyone looks in, all they’ll see is your obediently sleeping form. You’re  _pretty_ sure it’s good enough to fool the cameras, too, including the smarmy AI who lives in them, but you’re working on that problem from a different angle.

Because that’s the thing: any real escape plan has to involve disabling the so-called fucking Auto-Responder. It’s got access to everyone’s shock bracelets, for one thing, which doesn’t bother you personally as much—you can take a lot of electricity before it hurts, even if these damn goggles mean you can’t make your own. But you’d sort of prefer to get everyone out, too, and leave these government assholes gaping as their fucked-up research project burns empty to the ground. Maybe literally, if you have the time—between you and TZ, you could probably torch the place on the way out.

But first you have to disable the AR. You don’t think even most of the staff know how deep it is in their system, everywhere from cameras to chat clients. Hell, you aren’t sure the older Strider knows, and it’s his chthonic creation. _You_ know, because you’ve been playing digital cat-and-mouse with it pretty much since you got this lame-ass computer, and you’ve only been the cat like half the time.

You’re pretty sure it hasn’t told anyone how many times it’s turned you back from one system or another, though (fine, asshole, _keep_ control of the automatic doors. If it tries to Hal 9000 you, you will _blast them down_.) At least, none of the humans have tried to stop your late-night hacking sessions. Of course, they could just be keeping tabs on your progress, to see how effective a kitsune can be at electronic espionage or some shit like that. You literally despise these people.

           AR: Ooh, nice try. Pity my firewalls are thicker than a lumberjack’s dick at Hooter’s Flapjack Day.

You glare at the chat window and close it with a quick command. AR will just open it again to bother you, but you don’t really care—that was just a feint, anyway, and you must have hit a nerve for it to respond at all. Or it’s just bored, you guess—nobody else is awake, and you don’t think it talks much to anyone but you and DK anyway.

You bare your teeth in a not-at-all-nice grin and set your fingers to the keys once more, chasing the AI through your software. You’re pretty sure it wasn’t there when RX first handed you the laptop, but it definitely downloaded itself the first time you opened the snapshot of the internet they let you browse. (Okay so they could be treating you worse. A bit.)

The AI might think it’s been messing with you for the past couple weeks, but hacking, cheat codes, viruses—they’re all just new ways of applying the same tricks you’ve been playing since you were a one-tailed kit. You’ve got four now, after only 163 years, and no jumped-up computer code is going to beat you at your own game. You invented an entirely new coding language just to screw it over. You call it ~ATH.

Still, it’s an uphill battle. You spend half the time just keeping it out of the code you’re writing in the moment, which also means keeping it out of the programs you run to keep it out of the code you’re writing. You know it’s in the mood for a fight tonight because it isn’t just quitting you out, even though you’re getting close to its own structural codes. Usually it doesn’t let you get a glimpse of anything more than a couple subroutines.

You’re hitting it hard and fast, too. You shoot for multiple targets—your anklet, the actual internet, the cameras in your room and in the staffs’ rooms. You actually get the last for a moment, and instantly add several more items to your already lengthy list of eternal regrets, mostly because you really don’t have the time to screenshot JD sleeping nude under thin sheets or DK spooning a spindly-limbed puppet. Actually, that one gets on the list because you really never _ever_ needed to see it, but it would have made _amazing_ blackmail material.

Eh, AR probably has it already. It’s a douche that way, even with its own programmer.

While you have it momentarily distracted shutting off all those feeds—did JN fall asleep wearing a false moustache?—you drive forward with your coup-de-etat. Hack the base code, hack the AI; hack the AI, _own_ the building and everyone in it. (Seriously, there’s no way RS agreed to all this. You’ve considered telling her, sowing dissention among the staff, but aside from you, only RX has the chops to hack it out of the system, and you aren’t sure she wouldn’t side with DK.)

EXECUTE(READ SOURCE), hit Enter, and _hell. fucking. ye—_

Wtf, what is opening, how did it loop you around this time. You _had_ it.

You run a search and don’t turn up anything that would throw up the weird-ass patterns now occupying your screen. The mere fact that you can do _that_ unhindered tells you something—if AR had just scored a point on you, it would be gloating over Pesterchum, not…mysteriously absent, actually. Huh. Maybe you really did break through to something. But this sure as hell isn’t code. It’s more like…imaging of neural activity? On a computer network rather than a human brain.

There’s a sharp buzz and your screen goes black. Damn, you really _did_ piss it off.

Your blank laptop screen reflects your fanged grin.

-

            AR: Dirk.

            AR: Dirk.

            AR: Dirk, wake up or so help me I will start sounding alarms.

            AR: Damn it, Cal isn’t even that cuddly. DIRK.

Your pissy sunglasses start beeping and you sit up with a yawn and pull them on. “What’s up?”

            AR: We might have a slight problem.


End file.
